


the first plot

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Duncan Lives, Gen, tricksters being tricksters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-26 00:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14988746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: Not all the Old Gods are asleep or dead. The Dragon of Mystery has plans for us all, and one Grey Warden is about to set one of those plans into motion.





	the first plot

_Soon enough, there will be no need for Grey Wardens._

It’d been ominous when he first heard it -- deep in Kul-Baras, where a younger Duncan had mistaken it for a threat, and why wouldn’t he? The Architect’s designs had been clear.

But this isn’t Kul-Baras. This is a dream, a Warden-dream, a dreaming so deep it could rightfully be called a Fade-walk. The years of darkspawn taint had stretched his consciousness wide enough that the fabric of the Fade was as much a part of him as it was for any mage. And tonight, he dreamed of dragons.

 _Soon enough, there will be no need for Grey Wardens,_ an Old God says to him, matter-of-factly, as if this is something he should already know. It beckons his attention to a vision that instantly fills him with dread as black and heavy as cold iron -- a dragon with dripping maw and bloody eye, flesh cracked and oozing, awakening to nightmare.

 _You’re not convincing me of that,_ Duncan retorts, shutting his eyes against the sight. _Leave me be, dragon. I was dreaming of... I was dreaming of Kell._

 _You can dream of Kell another time,_ the Old God says. _Watch._

So Duncan opens his eyes, and watches.

Two Grey Wardens approach the Archdemon. The bigger one draws his sword, and there is something achingly familiar about him, something that nags at Duncan like a wound that refuses to heal. Like something left behind, something forgotten, something set by the wayside because more immediate things demanded his attention. The smaller one, an elf, touches his companion’s arm, and he lowers the sword, shifts it to one hand, and takes the elf’s hand with the other.

 _I admit, I failed with the kossith,_ the Old God sighs, shrugging, _but that wasn’t just_ my _failure, anyway. I think this... subtle approach works better. Genetic manipulation is a delicate science, you know._

 _It really is too bad about Urthemiel, though,_ it adds, softly, as the vision fades before Duncan can see what happens to the Archdemon. _First Urzara, then its priest, now this. But that’s why I made my first child a gentle one._

The Old God turns to Duncan, its inscrutable features -- somehow both elven and Qunari, and also distinctly _not-mortal,_ but not in any way that Duncan could explain -- suffused with a soft amusement.

_I grant you a boon. He is in the Avvar hold called Frosthold. You know of whom I speak. Follow the three-eyed raven, she will lead you; but against the Avvar, you must use your own cunning._

_In return for this boon, you will find my child, my first-born. I will not tell you where he is -- he is for you to find. You will bid him drink, as you will bid the Avvar boy drink, and he will become as you are. And then..._ and here, the amusement in its expression deepens, _then, you will wait for me._

* * *

The Frosthold Avvar called him Ali, Ali Bear-boy -- and he did look like an overgrown cub, stocky and hirsute, with a disarmingly winsome face -- and they would have fought to keep him if Ali had not pleaded with them to let him go. A friend of Ali’s, a tall, somber youth with a million-yard stare, spoke to his elders and they listened. While Duncan shivered outside, they came together and begrudgingly decided.

“I didn’t think it would work,” Ali says in amazement, when they are beyond the walls of the hold. “They’re a stubborn lot, and they hate Fereldans. But times... are changing. I can feel it on the wind, like a storm. Anyway, I knew you would come. I’d been preparing. Annis knew, too. He knows many things. He’ll be Augur one day.”

Ali Bear-boy shows no surprise to the appearance of Duncan in his life, to the concept of returning to the lowlands, to the idea of becoming a Grey Warden. But he has no answers for Duncan. “You say I’m not from here, that I am not Avvar. I know this. I know I’m different. But I don’t know how I came to be here. Just as I don’t know how you came to be here,” Ali says, cheekily.

“A dragon sent me,” Duncan replies.

* * *

Duncan thought the Dalish youth was the Old God’s first-born -- there was something wild and unfinished about him, an inner turmoil that promised greatness if it could be tempered and refined. But the Dalish youth escaped him one night. Duncan awoke to the campfire’s smoky embers and Dion Mahariel’s empty bedroll... but where he expected panic to arise, there was nothing but a rueful resignation.

He could smell Lake Calenhad nearby; Kinloch Hold’s spire rose clear against the dusky-blue sky. A raven’s raucous croak sealed the deal. He packed up and headed for the Circle.

He came to Ostagar with two, and it was difficult to know which was the Old God’s first-born. The Circle-trained elf was beautiful to the point of pain, and with little effort had brought Duncan to his knees before him -- literally, on one night’s occasion -- and he’d thought, surely, surely Anansi Surana had to be a god-given gift. He had certainly been gentle, if Duncan remembered his touch correctly.

But there was the brooding Vashoth to consider, as well. Had the dragon not mentioned the kossith -- a word that Duncan had only seen in historical accounts? Its first attempt, at... genetic manipulation, as it had said? Perhaps it preferred a familiar canvas.

It didn’t matter. He had done as the Old God had instructed. The Circle mage and the Vashoth both survived their Joining, as had the lost Theirin a year before. And now the battle was upon them, and he had time for nothing else.

* * *

He’d had a dream like this, once.

No... not a dream. Kul-Baras had not been a dream. The darkspawn hordes that assault Ostagar now remind him of Kul-Baras. His shallow breathing and checkerboard vision as he crawls on the blood-soaked ground holding his guts in reminds him of Kul-Baras. The cold iron of his despair reminds him of Kul-Baras.

Cailan... _Loghain..._ and where are his Wardens? Having lit the beacon, had they, too, been overcome? Had this all been in vain?

"Don’t be dramatic. Your Wardens are fine. I saw to that." 

The Old God’s voice holds the same soft, almost tired-sounding amusement as before. Duncan looks up with bleary eyes, and through the blur of battle and pain he can just see it -- the dragon in bipedal form, looking down at him.

" _You will wait for me._ That is what I said. And now I am here." The Old God looks up at the Tower of Ishal and nods. "A Vashoth. A nice touch. You make a fine tool, Grey Warden. Which is why I’ll have to keep you for a little longer."  
Duncan could feel himself fading, and he sinks to the earth, barely registering the dragon’s words. He struggles to think his last thoughts, to remember his last memories, but the Old God makes an impatient noise, pulls his hands away from his body, and begins to reconstruct him with a practiced efficiency.  
He doesn't realise that he is no longer on the battlefield, that the earth he is lying upon is not Ferelden, but Fade. For a while, he knows nothing but distant flashes of pain and the inexorable weight of destiny.

"You’ll have plenty of time to die later, and it may even be as noble a death as dying on the battlefield that history will remember as a turning point," Razikale muses as it works, heedless of whether Duncan can hear it or not. "But your Grey Wardens are not yet ready for this task, and will be temporarily preoccupied with the Blight and civil unrest besides. And the priest won’t listen to me, because he thinks I hate them all, and doesn’t understand my purpose. So it will be you I send, to find and aid poor Urthemiel’s priest -- you, the one who got away."


End file.
